Forum:Hitler's War predictions
Let's see how wrong we get it. 1. Since HT has stated that although Sanjurjo's survival is the primary change, but the impact isn't noticeable until 1938, I'm saying that the ultimate result in the Spanish Civil War is the same, but Sanjurjo looks and sounds like he will side with Hitler militarily. :Here's one for you, maybe Sanjurjo's survival leads to the collapse of the Fascist government. Maybe he attempts a failed coup against Franco, and surviving Republicans benefit from the creation of a power vacuum. Maybe he becomes Franco's right-hand man and dicks over so many people that the regime is toppled from beneath. :I'll admit that's a bit stretchy, because if HT wanted a Republican Spain for his story, wouldn't it be simpler just to have the Republicans win? Turtle Fan 00:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC) I'm still not sure how this changes Chamberlain's mind--seems like another enemy would be more leverage for Chamberlain to pursue peace, not war. I should also point out that the statement Steven Silver provided only said that Munich "fell apart", but didn't assign blame--maybe Hitler just gets cocky with Spain at his side. I realize DelRey's ads say otherwise, but what's that really worth? :Under my scenario, perhaps the reason Franco wins initially but then falls apart is so that Chamberlain can feel more confident about the unsustainability of fascism. Maybe he convinces himself that Hitler, too, is liable to fall at any minute, and is thus less intimidated. :Under yours, perhaps the presence of a military ally of Hitler's, maybe even the host of a large German army, sharing a land border with a poorly-defended section of France and being a short hop across the water from Britain makes the Western Allies take the threat more seriously. Czechoslovakia was an ally, but not a very valuable one, more of a liability than an asset, really. But if the Nazis are present in force in western Europe, Chamberlain may recognize a much graver, more immediate threat if they become emboldened. :Of course, they had already become emboldened when they took the Rhineland unopposed. Turtle Fan 00:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC) Not sure whether to say we got this wrong or that it remains to be seen. The Spanish PoD remains a real non-sequitir at this point. We were barking up the wrong tree trying to suss out how this directly impacted Munich, but this is Turtledove, not Tsouras, so it was quite natural and logical for us to assume there'd be just one PoD to which everything could be traced. Turtle Fan 22:33, February 20, 2010 (UTC) :I think it remains to be seen. The closest it got was when Hitler thought of Sanjurjo's support, but that hardly was the make or break in his decision to go to war. TR 20:58, February 21, 2010 (UTC) 2. Given the title, I'm inclined to think that Germany fights more or less alone, save perhaps Spain, in the beginning. :I could still see Italy climbing on board for the Axis, but I could see it go your way too. Turtle Fan 00:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC) Afraid not. Both alliance systems are extensive in this war, which I have to say I like. Turtle Fan 22:34, February 20, 2010 (UTC) :Yep, that has been reasonably good. It should be remembered that as of the end of HW, Italy has declared war, but done absolutely nothing in Europe. TR 21:00, February 21, 2010 (UTC) 3. Italy-could go with Germany, but given the history, I think that neutrality or sideing with the Allies are more plausible. Mussolini was nervous about Germany in OTL, and had vaguely hinted a willingness to join Britain and France. If an interventionist Spain is present, Mussolini might reasonably see a real rival to his dream of making the Mediterranean into an Italian lake. There is something to be said for waiting and seeing how things shake out, of course. :You know, I'm really not sure how the shake-up in Spain will affect things there. Turtle Fan 00:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC) We got this one unsalvageably wrong. Turtle Fan 22:35, February 20, 2010 (UTC) 4. USSR-had a defense pact with Czechoslovakia. Barbarossa notwithstanding, Stalin seems to have figured out Hitler pretty quickly, and had signaled his willingness to engage Hitler if the West stood fast. Protecting Czechoslovakia would have the benefit of allowing Stalin to expand his reach under the guise of aiding an ally, and maybe help push Hitler west, which was one of Stalin's goals. :Oh, how he would love to send troops into Czechoslovakia to aid in his ally's defense. Then once the Germans are defeated, those troops stay where they are and export the Revolution. There's the set-up for your scenario with the Stalin's War follow-up. Turtle Fan 00:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC) ::Pursuing that thought at a different angl-since there is no reason to think events in Asia will change, could a busy USSR lead to a more aggressive Japan in Manchuria, etc. in 1938? It wouldn't have to arise from any relationship between Germany and Japan, merely the opportunism that was in play in OTL when Japan picked a few fights (and got creamed)? TR 07:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC) :::Events in Asia won't change--They hardly ever do. Then again, there's no reason to think Sanjurjo's survival would give Chamberlain balls, so I'm expecting other odd butterflies besides. :::Playing with your idea . . . I wonder if lack of Russo-Mongolian interest in chastening the Japanese will derail the US recognition of the Soviet Union. Turtle Fan 07:35, 9 May 2009 (UTC) In OTL, the USSR was shut out of Munich, which helped push Stalin to detente with Hitler. We don't know how that goes here. :Since Stalin's was the only government to support the Republicans openly, a shake-up in Spain could change Western attitudes to the point that they see him as a hard and fast natural ally in the Popular Front. Turtle Fan 00:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC) We did pretty well here. Turtle Fan 22:36, February 20, 2010 (UTC) 5. Poland-I think might make a daring prediction based on minor evidence, but I suspect Poland will actually become a co-belligerent with Germany for two reasons. First, if the USSR does fight Germany, it will probably have to put troops in Czechoslovakia to do it. Poland might get very nervous about having the Red Army directly south of its border, and Stalin was certainly opportunistic enough to start messing about up north. Second, Poland and Germany as allies in World War II is the kind of irony HT loves. :I remember in Worldwar one of the Lizards commented that both the Poles and the Jews were prepared to fight on the Race's behalf against both the Deutsche and the Russkis, but that the Poles would rather fight the Russkis and the Jews would rather fight the Deutsche. Also in the Derlavai books when Forthweg got petitioned someone commented that if you were Kaunian you wanted to be in the Unkerlanter half and if you were ethnic Forthwegian you wanted to be in the Algarvian half. Even in MwIH, after a war nearly identical to the real one, Bokov meets a Pole and thinks how the Pole is probably even less thrilled about Russian domination than he was about German, despite being a communist. :So we can count on HT having the Poles prefer Hitler if it came down to that, at least at the beginning of the war. :Whether Hitler is prepared to make overtures to Poland, or accept overtures from them, is another matter. Bunch of God-damned Slavic subhuman scum living on proper German land that should be Germany's once again, especially their pathetic little sliver of land to hook themselves up to Danzig so they won't be strangled in the cradle as they so richly deserve. Cutting East Prussia, the proud homeland of the glorious Teutonic military tradition, off from the rest of Germany--wrongs which Hitler swore on all that's holy to make right again. :If Hitler finds every other European power united against him, pride wars with desperation. In most people, desperation will win every time. But the OTL record proves that's a more open question with this one. Turtle Fan 00:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC) Here we were very right. Making a serious effort to draw realistic conclusions based on the track record of an author we know well actually worked, for a change. Turtle Fan 22:39, February 20, 2010 (UTC) 6. The U.S.--now I'm going to be very daring. The U.S. will proclaim neutraility. I realize it sounds like the Logic of Ten Gizzis. :Agreed. If the French and British have the situation well in hand, Americans will not be prepared to part with their isolationism. It will drive Roosevelt and a few others mad, and others will worry if the USSR joins the fray and Britain and France start seeing Moscow as their natural ally rather than Washington. But that's not going to be able to turn the isolationist tide. Turtle Fan 00:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC) ::If Hitler is no longer an issue by 1940, I believe that could change the outcome of the election (FDR's decision to run for term 3 was in no small part to his belief that only he could see where events in Europe were headed). Even with this change in Europe, the U.S. and Japan could still be on a collision course. Timeframe is a little harder to predict. TR 07:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC) :::Oh I agree a Japanese war is still likely. Those two fronts were far less closely connected than most people often think. Whether that's enough to get Roosevelt re-reelected . . . That collision course was different from the European one. The need to defeat Japan was obvious, and responsiveness to it was deep in the US's political DNA. With Hitler, people were more alarmed because it so closely resembled the last generation's nightmare. Turtle Fan 07:35, 9 May 2009 (UTC) ::::As I think about it, as a war will still be going on in 1940 (it's a series after all) FDR running again seems plausible, as most of the reasons for his run in OTL are still present (unless of course Germany is just being mopped up). ::::Whether or not he wins though isn't as clear. If Germany is somehow in the same place as in OTL 1940 (occupying everyone), then FDR has good prospects. If things have settled into a 1916-esque stalemate, then I suspect the isolationists gain traction (harkening back to Wilson's promise to keep out of war would be a good blunt instrument during the election). If it becomes the "Stalin's War" scenario I've speculated about, then I think the fact that FDR recognized the USSR, plus any lingering Red Scareism probably helps cost him the election. TR 19:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC) Everything here is still an open question. Except Stalin's War. Fucking lame-ass title. Turtle Fan 22:41, February 20, 2010 (UTC) 7. I've said this elsewhere but I'll say it again--I'd love it if HT treated this as an inverse of 191-i.e., the series is Eurocentric, with quick glimpses of other parts of the world. TR 07:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC) :I miss stories that are told on a truly global scale, like Worldwar and Derlavai. To be sure, those are very grand, ambitious projects, and they can't be easy to shit out. Just about every one of the dozens of POVs get used in those. Turtle Fan 07:35, 9 May 2009 (UTC) ::I don't think there is anything that suggests this series isn't one of those, though I'd think if it was it would be Eurocentric. Jelay14 18:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC) :::Just a hunch, plus the fact that HT hasn't done one in a while and has been sort of going out of his way to avoid referring to extraneous continents (ie, in MwIH, with the "Things are going badly for the KMT in the Chinese Civil War, and that's all you need to know about it.") Turtle Fan 19:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC) Eurocentric it was. Despite three US citizens as POVs, we got next to nothing on America's role in the war--all we know is that the US government was pissed about getting its ship sunk and that the thought of provoking hte US into joining the Allies gave Germany pause. That's it! Turtle Fan 22:47, February 20, 2010 (UTC) 7.1: The Random House Summary ::::Read this from Random House's description: :::::A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war at any cost, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country and pushed beyond its borders. World War II had begun, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared. :::::Now, in this thrilling, provocative, and fascinating alternate history by Harry Turtledove, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? What if Hitler had acted rashly, before his army was ready–would such impatience have helped him or doomed him faster? Here is an action-packed, blow-by-blow chronicle of the war that might have been–and the repercussions that might have echoed through history–had Hitler reached too far, too soon, and too fast. :::::Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell this story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China to members of a Jewish German family with a proud history of war service to their nation, from ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory–and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast. :::::A novel that reveals the human face of war while simultaneously riding the twists and turns that make up the great acts of history, Hitler’s War is the beginning of an exciting new alternate history saga. Here is a tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, of spies, soldiers, and traitors, of the shifting alliances that draw some together while tearing others apart. At once authoritative, brilliantly imaginative, and hugely entertaining, Hitler’s War captures the beginning of a very different World War II–with a very different fate for our world today. Jelay14 21:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC) ::::This sort of gives the impression that this could be American-centric, with Yankee POVs plopped all over the globe. I hope that isn't the case. Jelay14 21:27, 14 May 2009 (UTC) :::::"Dozens" of POVs? I think the most POVS in any one work was in Darkness, which had like 17 per volume. Could HT be breaking from his rigid X-number POVs per volume system, going more like early WW and MwIH, throwing in POVS to move the story? :::::Americentric seems a watchword, but with "dozens", they might have just decided to advertise to the fan base ("Look, American Reader--American Characters!") and name a couple. That the Abraham Lincoln Brigade is still fighting in September, 1938 (they were done in the Spring, I think, in OTL) is intriguing. So, it looks most of what we've said is wrong just out of the box. TR 21:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC) ::::::Also, Marines in Japanese-occupied China is nice for perspective of the Asian theater. Chinese in Japanese-occupied China would be better, of course. TR 21:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC) :I suspect "dozens of points of view" is hyperbole. 512/24=21 and a third pages per character, or roughly four POV scenes, and that's using the minimum number. You can't develop memorable characters that way. Maybe there are guest POVs--those are starting to creep back in, in MwIH and AtD--and maybe it also refers to offstage action covered by non-POV characters describing stuff to their POV friends, as FDR did to Flora toward the end. :Americentric, perhaps, but at least there are overseas Americans, and they're widely scattered, even in Asia this time. I wonder if, with so many Americans telling the story, maybe the US doesn't stay neutral after all. :The German Jews who are proud of the tradition of serving their country sound like they'll make a compelling story. :I'm more confused by the description of the plot. In 1938 the German army was ready for war. I take it then, from this fact as well as from the Lincoln Brigade dude, that the story involves Sanjurjo fucking up so badly that the Republicans fight the Fascists to a draw and the Germans get bogged down in some sort of quagmire trying to save Franco. The fact that the Germans are doing so badly makes them a lot less intimidating to outsiders like Chamberlain, but Hitler moves full speed ahead with his plans anyway? ::The Germany army was not ready for war in OTL, and told Hitler as much. They didn't have full petroleum resources, they didn't have a tremendous amount of popular support, the generals still hated Hitler. Indeed, there was so little faith in Hitler at this stage that if war broke out, there were several military leaders willing to kill Hitler to stop the whole thing. See the Oster Conspiracy. In reality, if the Allies had chosen war and could have held out, that might have been the end of it. ::So that statement scans with OTL. However, since we still have no idea what Spain has to do with Munich falling apart, your speculation probably still holds. TR 04:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC) :::They weren't ready for total war but they wouldn't've had to fight one in the Sudetenland. Poland couldn't have done much to support Czechoslovakia, the USSR wouldn't've been able to project force there even if they wanted to break the non-aggression pact, and the British and French were on the wrong side of Germany and all the chokepoints, had disarmed during the Depression and had not rearmed as quickly as Germany. So if Chamberlain had gone to war over the Czechs, he would have had almost as little in the tank as Hitler, and a wider gap between what he had and what he needed to attain his much more difficult war aims, assuming Hitler contents himself with modest acquisitions. :::It was a bluff, but it would be as though I tried to bluff you with a pair of nines while you were only holding a pair of jacks. :::You know, for a world on the brink of the largest war of all time, the world was surprisingly short on military powerhouses in the late 1930s. So unlike the early 1910s when the great powers were all armed to the teeth. :::Anyway, I'm guessing that either the longer Spanish Civil War somehow inspires the British to rearm more quickly, thus allowing them to outweigh Germany militarily, or that a long, slow, limited war between two underprepared forces takes place. Maybe even an analog of the Phony War. Ooh, wouldn't that make for riveting reading! Turtle Fan 19:13, 15 May 2009 (UTC) :Hmm, that's not quite like him. He went into the Rhineland before he was ready to fight France directly, but he was fully prepared to scoot if the French called his bluff. ::Again, in OTL, he really wanted to fight in '38. Why he changed his mind is unclear, but he did sign off on it. He spent a great deal of time bitching and moaning about Munich after, though. TR 04:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC) :I wish HT wouldn't do these awkward POVs like here and in MwIH. "Suppose someone important lives for years longer, but no one notices for a while." He's an imaginative fellow, surely he can think of more direct ways to get the Werewolves serious and make Chamberlain grow a pair. Turtle Fan 02:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC) Well we were wrong anywhere we said "Such-and-such character should make for an interesting perspective." Especially with Pete. But can you blame us? Would anyone have actually imagined that HT would fill an entire book with such useless cyphers? Turtle Fan 22:47, February 20, 2010 (UTC) 8. Hitler will be a POV. Just a feeling I have; HT's only ever used the genuine article once in such a capacity. TR 07:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC) :Would that be "Uncle Alf?" Turtle Fan 07:35, 9 May 2009 (UTC) ::Yes. TR 19:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC) :::I don't share your feeling. I think HT hates Hitler too much (and who doesn't) to sustain him as a POV. It would be like me writing for Cromwell: His bias would shine through way too strongly. He couldn't make himself to make Hitler the middlingly-sympathetic character most of his full-length novel POVs are. We may not like them, but they're human beings, even Heydrich and Featherston. HT couldn't humanize Hitler, I believe. It would be like writing Krispos the Emperor from Rhavas's perspective: too bone-chillingly evil to be readable. That or he mocks the shit out of Hitler, as he did in "Uncle Alf" with the niece. ::::Not sure mocking is the right word. More like he let Hitler be Hitler, and the man looked foolish. That having been said, I see your point--making Hitler remotely sympathetic would be hard. At least Featherston didn't start out as a Hitler clone, and so we had few preconceived notions about him. :::I think it's more likely that we'll get a character who's placed close to Hitler, and is not enamored with him but recognizes that a) they're on the same side and that side needs the tyrant, and b) doing something about that tyranny is all too likely to lead to a very unpleasant death. Someone like Molotov to Stalin or Rathar to Swemmel, or Potter to Featherston even though the Snake was also a character himself. Can you think of any likely candidates from Hitler's inner circle? :::Ooh, what about Paul Schmidt? We already have an article on him, and in his one appearance no less a Hitler-hater than Molotov acknowledged that he was both competent and decent, whereas most Nazi diplomats weren't even one or the other. And Schmidt played a very prominent role at the Munich conference, translating directly between Hitler and Chamberlain. At one point he was the only other person in the room with the two of them. ::::Schmidt makes some sense for much the same reason Molotov did in WW. As a diplomat, he'd be relatively mobile, and so able to give us some idea of the shape things. :::::He's useful in that sense, and was one of the few members of Hitler's inner circle with the decency to make a good POV, and HT seems to like the dynamic described above. Turtle Fan 02:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC) :::You know, I'm starting to bemuse myself by thinking that this resembles our argument over Patton as a POV in TG three years ago, with roles reversed and a far more civil tone. Turtle Fan 21:20, 12 May 2009 (UTC) ::::Not headed for a Pattonesque argument. TR 21:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC) :::::No, but the superficial resemblances are there. Turtle Fan 02:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC) About Hitler, I think we were both sort of right but with wrongness inherent in the rightness: TR got Hitler as a POV, but only for one scene; I was right that in his scene Hitler would come off as inhuman, but it didn't stop HT from writing the scene. It was only one, though, rather than a regular sequence. About Schmidt we were clearly quite wrong. Again, though, we were precluded from being right by the incorrect assumption that HT wanted to tell an interesting story and knew how to go about it. That seems to have been responsible for most of our misses, which is why I'm assuming the worst for W&E. Turtle Fan 22:52, February 20, 2010 (UTC)